Cooperative Principles Come First

Hi. Happy 2024! 

Many folks have asked why I moved on after nearly a decade from the Synergia Cooperative as a founder /member, and the colead and co-developer of the Synergia MOOC Towards Cooperative Commonwealth: Transition in a Perilous Century. 

 It was not an easy choice, even if a decision based on the best of coop principles.

After each year encouraging colleagues to open up coop membership (beyond the three remaining Synergia founders), I encountered the endless argument that we were too busy with the MOOC project, and adding new coop members would jeopardize future strategic planning for sustainability of the project. So, faced continually with what I experienced as unwillingness to relinquish control, I resigned as MOOC co-lead and my membership in the coop. 

I hope one day Synergia becomes an open democratic coop, with a spectrum of members, views, voices and votes informing its strategic future. In the meanwhile, I am proud of what we built, the creativity and problem solving, the funds we raised for future endeavours, and my many years of cooperative volunteerism invested therein. 

I continue to support Synergia and MAIS MOOC participants seeking university credits from AU, and I will be helping Synergia here and there.
 

It's that simple.  I remain committed to the struggle and puzzled by why progressive are consistently so lousy at solving the challenges of democratic cooperation.
  

I'll be working closer to home on climate and adaptation issues here in northern Alberta. And interested in working with others to provide large scale forms of online education to help the public organize systems change.  

See you down the road.

And check back with my updated Wakelet site on basic needs and transition . 

 

Earth Commission
Identifying a Safe and Just Corridor for People and the Planet - Rockström - 2021 - Earth's Future - Wiley Online Library

A great read - 7 pages...

"For the first time in human history, we are now forced to consider the real risk of destabilizing our home, planet Earth. This is an existential risk, as we all need a planet that can sustain life and provide the basis for the well-being of all people. Here, we outline a conceptual framework for a global-scale “safe and just corridor” that delivers on these goals for people and the planet. The recently formed Earth Commission will use this framework to map key functions that regulate the state of the Earth system and provide life support to us humans, including processes such as biodiversity and nutrient cycling. It will also analyze the related justice components, for each of these Earth systems..."

I found pages 4 and 5 most relevant for my own thinking about the how and why of Just Transition pathways. The authors outline the following:

3. "Integrating Justice in Earth System Targets Human choices and actions could narrow or widen the safe and just corridor for human development. Considering the complex interactions, feedbacks, and non-linearities within and between societal activities and Earth system behavior, we need to advance beyond previous frameworks such as the “donut” (Raworth, 2018) to understand when “safe” and “just” ranges do and do not overlap. First, an “unsafe” world is likely to increase inequality, so “safe” would seem a necessary pre-condition for “just”—but not always a sufficient one. A “safe” target from a biophysical perspective may not be adequate to prevent large-scale risks to humans in specific contexts. For example, there are large risks for many human populations even with a 1.5°C climate target (Hoegh-Guldberg et al., 2018). 

Second, a key question is how biophysically “safe” targets can be achieved while also meeting goals for human well-being and justice. For example, meeting the social goals of Agenda 2030 without widespread transformations may lead to crossing safe targets for the biophysical state of the Earth system (Sachs et al., 2019). Achieving biophysical targets, such as 1.5°C for climate or increasing ecosystem protection, can undermine well-being, if, for example, bioenergy competes with food production, or protected areas undermine local livelihoods (Hasegawa et al., 2020). 

Third, risks of exceeding safe and just targets are amplified for vulnerable people and can affect human health, displace people, and destabilize societies. ...."

and jump into a discussion of levers of transformation and challenges of transition...with an emphasis on how you do this in an equitable manner...as they write

"it is unclear how such transformations will actually be leveraged. Learning the lessons regarding equity in sharing resources, rights, responsibilities, and risks is critical (Ensor & Hoddy, 2020). For example, the evolution of transboundary water law has led to the identification of key criteria for sharing water between nations (UNGA, 1997). Furthermore, the politics of who gets what, when, where, and how is often determined by those who are more powerful in the system. Rules of access and distribution then become locked-in and difficult to transform. Existing environmental assessments, with a few exceptions (IPBES, 2019), often do not make space to discuss the critical political science and international relations literature with respect to these issues.." 

 Learn More About What Is Meant by the PolyCrisis and how to use a Systems approach to grasp the complexity of intersecting problems and what it all means for alternatives.   

The global polycrisis reflects a civilizational crisis that calls for systemic alternatives - resilience

"When examining systemic risks, it is important to clarify which system(s) are being considered. In the case of global polycrisis, one may consider multiple systemic risks in terms of their impact on the integrated global system, conceived as the human-Earth system writ large. Such an expansive point of reference complicates analysis, given that variables may be understood as exogenous or endogenous to specific systems, all the while being contained within and transmitted across the human-Earth system."

"Global catastrophic risks are events “that might have the potential to inflict serious damage to human well-being on a global scale.” For example, a disaster causing “10 million fatalities or 10 trillion dollars worth of economic loss… would count as a global catastrophe, even if some region of the world escaped unscathed.” Other scholars have defined GCRs as “threats that can eliminate at least 10% of the global population.”

"Existential risks, on the other hand, are even broader in scope and more severe in impact. They are defined as, “One where an adverse outcome would either annihilate Earth-originating intelligent life or permanently and drastically curtail its potential.”

"Most past collapses were precipitated by both social and environmental causes, and most were not apocalyptic. Collapse is usually never sudden and complete; it occurs progressively over time.

Dmitry Orlov provides the following taxonomy of five general stages that help clarify how societal collapse unfolds (excerpted with permission from The Five Stages of Collapse):

Stage 1: Financial Collapse. Faith in “business as usual” is lost. The future is no longer assumed to resemble the past in any way that allows risk to be assessed and financial assets to be guaranteed. Financial institutions become insolvent; savings are wiped out and access to capital is lost.

Stage 2: Commercial Collapse. Faith that “the market shall provide” is lost. Money is devalued and/or becomes scarce, commodities are hoarded, import and retail chains break down and widespread shortages of survival necessities become the norm.

Stage 3: Political Collapse. Faith that “the government will take care of you” is lost. As official attempts to mitigate widespread loss of access to commercial sources of survival necessities fail to make a difference, the political establishment loses legitimacy and relevance.

Stage 4: Social Collapse. Faith that “your people will take care of you” is lost, as social institutions, be they charities or other groups that rush in to fill the power vacuum, run out of resources or fail through internal conflict.

Stage 5: Cultural Collapse. Faith in the goodness of humanity is lost. People lose their capacity for “kindness, generosity, consideration, affection, honesty, hospitality, compassion, charity.” Families disband and compete as individuals for scarce resources. The new motto becomes “May you die today so that I can die tomorrow.”

and more..a helpful read...

Housing Crisis in Canada: A Critical Take

 The rising costs of attainable housing is a key topic in the MOOC. Here is a Canadian take on why we have a crisis of affordable housing, one some governments want to solve by giving over green belts to private developers. No Thanks you. Lets return to a real role for governments: 

We can't fix the housing crisis in Canada without understanding how it was created
by u/leftwingmememachine in ndp

A Good Read on Why We Cant Just Do It and Change

 Thanks to Ben from the MOOC Group for sharing this latest reflection from  Richard Heinberg 

Museletter #360: Why We Can't Just Do It - Richard Heinberg

Net Zero Steel !?$

 Growing up in Hamilton Ontario I worked for a few years in steel, as a labourer at STELCO (with about 12000 other men and a handful of women in the 1970s). 

The exchange of money for labour rebuilding open hearth furnaces funded my university studies. In the last forty years, Stelco changed owners, shed labour, stole pensions from retirees, and has mostly disappeared. Meanwhile  I reflected on the challenges of sustainability for steelmakers and a society so depndent on steel ( and cement) as building materials. Lately I've came to appreciate this discussion. Net Zero Steel Project

Good Free Degrowth Book for Activists and Practitioners from MAYFLY BOOKS

 Degrowth & Strategy: how to bring about social-ecological transformation – MayFly (mayflybooks.org)

Degrowth is a counter-hegemonic movement that has the ambitious aim of transforming society towards social and ecological justice. But how do we get there? That is the question this book addresses. Adhering to the multiplicity of degrowth whilst also arguing that strategic prioritisation and coordination are key, Degrowth & Strategy advances the debate on strategy for social-ecological transformation. It explores what strategising means, identifies key directions for the degrowth movement, and scrutinises strategies in practice that aim to realise a degrowth society. Bringing together voices from degrowth and related movements, this book creates a polyphony for change going beyond the sum of its parts.